First, the capacity side of the equation and perhaps not surprisingly much of this is funding issue. Current levels of funding (offered by primarily 40 humanitarian assistance providers, yes 40) will not approach the over 59 million people displaced worldwide. According to the report, donors account for about 50% of what is required, but most of that isn’t earmarked for education. Only 2% of aid for conflicted-affected and fragile states is education-specific. We are starting to see what the report refers to as “protracted crisis situations” (e.g., Syria), where “relief and recovery” must expand so development partners can complement and supplement the work of humanitarian actors.” Ultimately, this becomes a matter of reconfiguring aid and development itself: budgeting, working teams, impact measurements all need to shift as a result. But it is a necessary and ultimately productive shift.

Picking up from Melanne Verveer, there is an unprecedented scale involved in these recent crisis situations that necessitates this shift with “sixty-two million girls around the world are not in school, and at least 20 million of themlive in conflict-affected and fragile settings as refugees, internally displaced persons, or otherwise vulnerable populations.” We agree wholeheartedly with the following:

“There is a clear link between gender inequality, lack of access to education, and conflict.Four of the five countries that currently have the largest gender gaps in education also experience high levels of conflict. As millions of refugees continue to flee Syria to seek safety and security in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, schools are increasingly overwhelmed and overburdened.”

But beyond the immediate need, beyond the protracted crisis situations, beyond any sort of altruism or duty, this is an investment in people that promises a return. “Investing in education for girls is a key factor in sustainable development — it lowers maternal and infant mortality, reduces early or forced marriage, increases financial independence, and boosts economic growth. When 10 percent more girls go to school, a country’sGDP increases on average by 3 percent, and wages rise 20 percent for every year beyond fourth grade that a girl remains in school. The data on this issue is clear: Educating girls strengthens families, communities and societies.”

Solutions are there as well, solutions that have generated results. Solutions, however, must address the social norms surrounding the education, what barriers these girls might be confronting if and when the education becomes available, many of which are outlined in the report. Social isolation at the onset of puberty. Disproportionate burdens of household work and care-giving. Withdrawal from, and lack of safety in, public spaces. Sexual and gender-based violence. Lack of financial support. Education can and should address these social and financial barriers to entry. While programs might have some elements of transferability across locales, they can never lose sight of the local conditions (which are ported into the displaced environment) that bar, restrict, or deter entry to education.

As both Verveer and the report state, some of the solutions that might prove scaleable are often nontraditional, precisely because of the lack of capacity in the formal education sector. Catch-up” courses,accelerated learning programs, courses in local languages, education orientation programs,open-source technology, distance-learning courses. To address personal security, we see interventions springing up in direct response to local needs: the community-led “walking school bus” in Lebanon that ensures safe passage, the NGO operates amobile learning center in a bus, a Bangladeshi NGO that established clubs that target girls ages 13-21 to provide life skills and financial literacy training, sexual health, and family planning, and safety. A USAID initiative with the Afghan Ministry of Education that developed community-based education programs to provide education outside the classroom setting: homes, mosques, and community centers to provide a safer and community-supported approach to education. From 2006-2011, the Afghan program reached 105,000 students who were previously out of school, 65 percent of whom were girls. OpenEMIS Refugees (developed by UNESCO) tracks education data in emergency settings to help us make sense of it all.

So even with the swell of displaced persons, the fragility of their existence, and the limited opportunities posed to them educationally, continue to see education as an investment. Particularly for girls. Particularly at this time of greatest need. There are models out there so get creative. Address the local need with direct responses to the social norms that might be inhibiting education in the first instance.

I am typing this out from Jomo Kenyatta Airport in Nairobi reflecting on the past week spent with the good people of UN Habitat, specifically those associated with the CityRAP tool. The CityRAP tool trains city managers and municipal technicians in small to intermediate sized cities in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) to understand and plan actions aimed at reducing risk and building resilience through the elaboration of a City Resilience Action Plan.

A few caveats at the onset here. This reads a bit more like an academic piece which it largely is. It is drawn from something larger I wrote a bit ago for another paper. It might also read like an attack on the SDGs, which is not my point. The point here is that the SDGs have generated some incredible results and I sincerely support them, but we must be mindful of what is being mobilised in our pursuit of them. My focus is education and I suggest that the provisions of the SDGs related specifically to that field suggest particular scaled interventions (or at least make those approaches particularly attractive). Scale exacts pressure on particular types of education.

As part of my association with the Centre for Research in Digital Education at the University of Edinburgh (a version of this post appears there as well), I recently traveled with colleagues to deliver a three day workshop on digital education for Syrian academics who have been displaced by the conflict. The University has worked for a long time with the Council for At-Risk Academics (CARA), a great organisation providing urgently-needed help to academics in immediate danger, those forced into exile, and many who choose to work on in their home countries despite serious risks.

We seem to have endless ideas on how to use Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D). From job creation to women’s empowerment to civic participation, a number of ICT4D interventions have been developed and implemented over the years. Common question asked in my work is “what type of technology that might have biggest impact in our society in the coming years?”. As we have learned, ICTs in itself aren’t sufficient. While factors contributing to the success of ICT4D have become apparent, and many have written about them, I feel there's still a need to highlight some of them.

We have been some of the most vocal critics of Bridge International Academies (BIA), largely because most investigations and evaluations of their edtech impact to improve schooling in sub-Saharan Africa have been less than spectacular (many would say the impact is non-existent). So imagine our surprise to see Wayan Vota's latest ICTworks™ post highlighting the successes of BIA in Liberia.

We need to make women in innovation more visible, and correct the gender imbalance in the stories we tell. We need to tell more stories about the women working at the top of humanitarian innovation, and so today I sat down with Tanya Accone, Senior Advisor at UNICEF Innovation, to tell the story of a woman working at the top of a very visible humanitarian innovation team for a very visible humanitarian agency.

We do a lot of work on open learning as well and it was clear there was tension between these open educational platforms (like Coursera, edX, etc.) and their use in local contexts, particularly in emerging economies. There is tension there. Open educational technologies are too often framed as a transparent instrument for educational export, keeping (specifically Western or Global North) curricula, pedagogy, and educational values intact whilst they are broadcast to a global population in deficit.

I remember when I first started hearing the buzz about bots. My first thought? 'Here we go again...' - a reaction to the endless cycles of hype followed by business-as-usual that typifies the digital sector. However, over the past few months I've had the opportunity to design a few 'bots 4 good', and I'd like to share what I've learned: how they work, what they could be useful for, and where to start if you'd like to get one. I believe that done well, they could be really useful add-ons to your digital strategy as they provide a rich 'in-between' space for mobile users who aren't fully digitally literate.

Last week, I was at TICTeC 2018 where researchers, activists and practitioners discussed the impact of civic technology, or civic tech. This blogpost summarises the discussion of Two heads are better than one: working with governments.